FX sets 'Louie' season 4 premiere for May

"Louie" is coming back in early May — and in enough time to qualify the show for the next round of Emmy awards.

FX today announced that "Louie" season 4 would debut on Monday, May 5 at 10 p.m. — 19 months after the show's last episode, since Louis C.K. wanted to take a year off to recharge his batteries and keep one of TV's best, most inventive series from growing stale.

But we knew that it would be back sometime in May. What's new is the following: 1)FX will air two episodes each Monday night at 10 and 10:30, and 2)Though FX ordered 13 episodes, C.K. wound up delivering an extra 14th episode.

And by scheduling it this way, the majority of the season will air during the eligibility window for the 2013-2014 Emmys.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

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So are the Emmys the reason for the scheduling? Because I would have thought that FX would have otherwise wanted to keep the show on the air for as many weeks as possible rather than burn it off quickly. I'm also surprised they're premiering it the night at a show that's been off the air even longer, 24, finally returns.

I highly doubt that was a major factor in the decision. The reality is Louie isn't a strong performer and considering FX doesn't have another comedy to pair it with at that time, it makes sense to air it like this, taking up as few weeks as possible and minimizing ratings impact.